Abstract

Artistic expressions that attempt at teasing out issues that pertain to topical issues affecting a variety of mankind’s daily life and living has been the thrust of novelists, poets and singers. Many visual artists in the painting specialization especially, perhaps, would rather be given to displaying the mastery of colour rather focusing on message. Gani Odutokun’s paintings express a plethora of issues bordering on the environment of Nigerian society, the feminine gender and governance in the country. The randomly selected from the body of thirty six paintings done in different media and style over a period of time attests to the thrust of Odutokun’s artistic concerns. He spent his artistic energies aimed at addressing issues with the hope that the viewing public will be able to perceive his message through the representational abstract style of art. In this reviewed article, it is observed that Odutokun paintings fulcrum on figurative abstraction. He adopts a philosophy based on the neoformalist concept of artistic conversion that generates movement of artistic elemental principles. The drive of neoformalist as an idea is seen in his wild brush strokes and designs by accident aided by liquidized style of painting. In trying to categorized Odutokun’s painting under this study, they could be classified as generic, definite, semi-definite, vague, constant and variable as his means of expression. The study also contributes to the scholarship on Odutokun’s work in the Art Historical with the hope that more studies will be brought to bear on the artist’s works since his demise in 1985.

Key Words:Gani Odutokun, Paintings, Governance, Neoformalist, Abstraction, Liquidized, Figurative, Accident and design